An assessment of the unreliability of the history given by self-poisoned patients.

A comparison was made between the history of drugs taken by self-poisoned patients and the drugs detected in the urine from the same patients by laboratory screening procedures. The results coincided exactly in less than half of the patients, and the major tendency was to exaggerate the number of substances taken. It is concluded that drug histories are unreliable and that corroborating evidence should be sought.